Sometimes following a fitness program or workout schedule is not quite as do-able as the folks writing the advice make it sound. I suppose the idea is to tell you what you should be doing to achieve your fitness or weight-loss targets, but you know sometimes life gets a bit in the way of all these plans, and there is just no way you can follow your intended program.

I know, because I am in exactly that position myself right now, and it is very easy to get derailed or discouraged and start to wonder if it's all just a bit too much to keep up in the face of uncontrollable obstacles.

My difficulty is that the local pool has closed for six weeks, and that's quite a blow to a training program designed to take me into the World Top Ten Swimming Masters again this year, so I've tried to find somewhere else to get in the necessary daily workout routine, but it seems everywhere I turn, I find the same refurbishing going on and pools closing all over the place; so what do we do? Well the point of all this personal story stuff is to say, "yes we have a real problem in sticking with the training plan but we can, and have to, adapt just to keep the ball rolling to our benefit". The last thing we want to do is give up or say, "let's forget the whole thing".

I guess I sound repetitive, as I say this in several articles, but you must, "keep on keeping on". That's the key to maintaining weight loss or maintaining fitness. It's so easy to get discouraged by the events and obstacles that life puts in the way, but the "can't beat me" kind of feeling can be nurtured by finding an alternative to your workout, and I bet that most of us have some aspect of our program that we have been meaning to work on, but have been too tied up in the regular main activity to focus on.

For example, here's what I have done to combat the lack of pool time. I'm doing some sit-ups, heaven knows I've been avoiding that pleasure for ages now, and I'm getting in some push-ups and a little work on the arms with some light weights, or if you have no weights, try two milk container jugs (the ones with the handles) filled with water, as barbells. Yes we all know that one, but you get the

Now one of the things you don't hear much from the pundits pushing their fitness or weight-loss programs is how they are doing and, if we do, it's all upbeat and rah-rah. Well let me tell you, I went quite some distance to find a pool that was open, as it had been close to two weeks without any swim workout, and boy, oh boy did I feel pretty bad! Arms of lead and legs that reconfirmed to me that if you don't have those legs in shape, you're "cooked". This is the other area I'm always harping on about, but you know it is true that the legs are the key to core strength and if we don't get them in shape, it really doesn't matter how good the rest of the body is because the leg fatigue will suck all the power from the engine.

So I struggled through my session and at the end it was a little better, but knowing I had at least put in a maintenance type session made me feel better and back on track, if not improving at least holding steady and not rolling backwards and that's my point. Whatever is temporarily disrupting your plans or throwing you off your schedule, work around it by adapting and using inventive thinking to keep you from slipping backwards. Like I've said in my articles before, the key phrase is, "keep on keeping on!" So keep on and don't give up!

Good luck, all the best.

Gordon Black is a world-ranked Master swimmer and Canadian national record holder. A member of the British swim team in the late '60s, after thirty years out of the pool, last year Gordon returned to competitive swimming in the Masters forum. He offers an online weight loss, fitness and motivational coaching service through his web site www.gordonblack.com where his competitive comeback is chronicled. Gordon is currently working on a book based on his own weight management and fitness system - publisher's enquiries welcome!

gordon@gordonblack.com